Users: Vista faster, more agile for SOAs

Looking back, 2006 will be remembered as the year Microsoft finally started uttering the 'S' word (SOA) and even the 'E' word (ESBs). It's not that Microsoft technologies haven't already been part of the emerging SOA projects that have been dotting the enterprise landscapes in recent years. They've been a huge part of it.

Microsoft's new Vista OS appears to be already playing a role in some enterprise SOA deployments as well. (For ZDNet bloggers' takes of Vista, made available to enterprises as of November 30, check out this news wrap-up site.)

eWeek reports that one online service provider, IP Commerce, is using Vista-based tools as the underpinning of an SOA that brokers various services from major financial institutions that can be consumed by small businesses. The enabling application is called the PASS (Payments as a Secure Service) Commerce Center, is employing two components of Microsoft's .Net 3.0 framework that are part of Vista: WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and WCF (Windows Communication Foundation).

In addition, Chip Kahn, IP Commerce's CEO, says development of these services is ten times faster on the new .NET 3.0 framework than on .NET 2.0.

eWeek mentions another enterprise, Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, which is using Vista's .NET 3.0 technology to replace a decades-old COBOL application used to check vehicles in and out from customers. Windows Communication Foundation is core to the effort, and DTAG technical architect Jim Arrowood is quoted as saying WCF helped deliver "different Web service endpoints built upon a single code base."  For example, WCF was able to interface via a standard SOAP Web service to one such endpoint, handheld devices used in DTAG parking lots.